Álvaro de la Cruz Dombriz gets the Y1 rating, South Africa Álvaro de la Cruz Dombriz, member of UCM-Th MultiDark has been awarded with the Y1 rating for young researchers by the NRF, South Africa, based on their performance and productivity as researcher. His group has also been awarded EUR200,000 to a joint cosmology project between Cape Town and the Oslo U.

The project started in 2011 between MultiDark members and Fermi-LAT has resulted in the paper “The angular power spectrum of the diffuse gamma-ray emission as measured by the Fermi Large Area Telescope and constraints on its Dark Matter interpretation”

MultiDark offers to undergraduate students in their last years the opportunity to participate in a summer visit in one of its research Groups in the field of dark matter. Deadline for applications: 20th June 2016

The Ministry of Economy and Competitiviness has recently approved an extension of one year for MultiDark.The project, funded for a period of 5 years, starting 17th December 2009, has been officially extended until 16th June 2017.

MultiDark member, Kiwoon Choi, and Angel Uranga, as Directors of both institutes have signed a collaboration agreement to foster the exchange of visitors and promote joint scientific projects on particle and astroparticle physics.

25/04/2016

Book published by a MultiDark member

Mario Gómez, member of MultiDark, published the book "El modelo estándar de partículas", included in the series "Un paseo por el Cosmos" of the editorial RBA, where he provides a complete outreach overview of the Standard Model of particle physics.

The ANTARES and IceCube collaborations, together with those of LIGO and Virgo, have published the results of a search for a correlation of high energy neutrino events with the gravitational wave GW150914 recently reported. MultiDark members are involved in this search.

LIGO experiment Opens New Window on the Universe with Observation of Gravitational Waves from Colliding Black Holes. GRG-UIB group, lead by MultiDark member Alicia Sintes, participate in LIGO Scientific Collaboration.

The catalog of sources detected above 50 GeV by the Fermi-Large Area Telescope (LAT) in 80 months of data is already available. The newly delivered Pass 8 event-level analysis allows the detection and characterization of sources in the 50 GeV-2 TeV energy range. A. Domínguez is a corresponding author. Other MultiDark members are also co-autors.

Continuing with the EUSO project for the search of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays,the infrared camerabuiltby the UAH group of MultiDark will be flying next month in a NASA aerostatic balloon,to complete new crucial tests at the Stratosphere.

Latin American Webinars on PhysicsOn Wednesday, 24th June, It will take place the webinar: "Dark matter, neutrino masses and LFV processes in the scotogenic model" by Carlos E. Yaguna (MPIK - Heidelberg). If you are interested you can also follow it and participate of the Q&A.

MultiDark offers to undergraduate students in their last years the opportunity to participate in a summer visit in one of its research Groups in the field of dark matter. Deadline for applications: 21th June 2015

Article published by a MultiDark member in Scientific American Scientific American is featuring this month an article called "All the Light there Ever Was" by Multidark Member Alberto Domínguez. The article describes the latest results on the Extragalactic Background Light both from galaxy data and gamma-ray astrophysics.

Latin American Webinars on PhysicsTomorrow at 15.00 GMT, It will take place the webinar: "The AMS-02 experiment" by Julia Hoffman (National Central University, Taiwan). If you are interested you can also follow it and participate of the Q&A.

Latin American Webinars on PhysicsTomorrow at 15.00 GMT, It will take place the webinar: "Status of the LHC and results from CMS" by Isabel Pedraza (Benemérita Univ. Autónoma de Puebla, México). If you are interested you can also follow it and participate of the Q&A.

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) has announced the discovery of eight new dwarf galaxies candidates.In parallel, the Fermi-LAT Collaboration reported on an analysis which shows no gamma-ray emission from these objects. Under the dwarf galaxy assumption, Fermi-LAT also set competitive limits on dark matter annihilation. MultiDark is present in this study through some of its members.

Today at 16.00 CET, It will take place the webinar: "WIMP and SIMP Dark Matter from the Spontaneous Breaking of a Global Group" by Nicolas Bernal (ICTP─South American Institute for Fundamental Research). If you are interested you can also follow it and participate of the Q&A.

The Swedish magazine Populär Astronomi has just published the top-ten list of the most cited publications in Astronomy in 2014 in Sweden. A paper by MultiDark members Miguel Sánchez-Conde (currently working as a postdoc in Stockholm) and Francisco Prada (IAA & IFT UAM-CSIC), is number six in the list.

The Principal Investigator of the IFIC-AHEP MultiDark group, José W. F. Valle, has received the medal of the division of particles and fields of the Mexican Society of Physics. We congratulate him for this prize.

Book published by a MultiDark memberWhat you ever wanted to know and never dared to ask! José W. F. Valle together with his collaborator Jorge Romao, published the book "Neutrinos in High Energy and Astroparticle Physics", where they provide a modern description of the Standard Model and its main extensions from the perspective of neutrino physics.

Juan de Dios Zornoza new convener of the Dark Matter & Exotics WG of ANTARES

The ANTARES neutrino telescope is as of today the most sensitive detector of its kind to neutrinos coming from the self-annihilation of WIMPs in the centre of the Galaxy and has a very competitive performance as well for those coming from the Sun. We congratulate Juande Zornoza, co-convener also of one of the MultiDark working groups, for his new appointment.

06/11/2014

Cosmic-Ray Telescope Flies High

Article published on October 14th, 2014, in Scientific American about the EUSO-Balloon flight campaign.

The Fermi LAT Collaboration has just reported on a new analysis of 15 dwarf spheroidal galaxies using 5 years of data.

The new limits on the dark matter annihilation cross section considerably improve upon previous results, and stand as the best and more robust limits at present coming from indirect detection. MultiDark is involved in this work through some of its members.

SDSS has passed another milestoneThere are now 6019 refereed papers in ADS that mention SDSS or 'Sloan Survey' in their abstract or title with a total of 263,532 citations. 50 and 525 papers with more than 500 and 100 citations respectively, and the h number is 202. MultiDark is a member of SDSS.

MultiDark members, in collaboration with the Biochemistry Department at UAM, have been awarded with a MINECO "EXPLORA TECNOLOGÍA" grant to use the robotic technologies developed for DESI to micro-inject DNA into the mitochondria.

It has been launched on August 24th. This is the result of over two years of development by a large team of cosmic-ray physicists and engineers within the international JEM-EUSO collaboration. The infrared camera was built by the Spanish team under the leadership of the UAH group of MultiDark

US federal funding agencies have selected the experiments they will support in the next generation of the search for dark matter: SuperCDMS, Lux-Zeplin and Axion Dark Matter. The UAM/IFT group, participant in MultiDark, is a member of CDMS.

The Ministry of Economy and Competitiviness has recently approved an extension of one year for MultiDark.The project, funded for a period of 5 years, starting 17th December 2009, has been officially extended until 16th December 2015.

10/07/2014

IBS-MultiDark Joint Focus ProgramA two-week Focus Program on “WIMPs and axions” organized jointly by MultiDark and the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) centers CTPU (Center for Theoretical Physics of the Universe), CAPP (Center for Axion and Precision Physics Research) and CUP (Center for Underground Physics), will take place in Daejeon (South Korea) from October 10 to 21, 2014. 16/06/2014More information

Summer short term visits for students in MultiDark

MultiDark offers to undergraduate students in their last years the opportunity to participate in a summer visit in one of its research Groups in the field of dark matter. Deadline for applications: 4th June 2014

DESI focal plate demonstratorA first look at the DESI focal plate demonstrator during machining at ADS (by the Spain Participation Group and LBNL collaboration). This is the result of four years of titanic efforts.

28/04/2014

Site negotiations for CTA started.

The 12 country delegates started the negotiations on the two sites in the South, namely Aar in Namibia and ESO in Chile, keeping Leoncito in Argentina as a third option. One site will be selected at the end of the year.For CTA North, with candidate sites located in Mexico, Spain and the USA, further considerations are necessary.

SDSS-III has completed the survey-quality observations for the BOSS key project. The final BOSS DR12 catalog is expected to exceed 2.7 million survey-quality spectra. MultiDark is a member of SDSS-III/BOSS.

The MultiDark Database is a widely used public service with more than 200 users worldwide. New data have been recently digested (e.g. MultiDark Planck 1Gpc/h simulation), and new technologies have being developed to cope with increasing data sets.

Miguel A. Sánchez-Conde new convener of the Dark Matter & New Physics WG of Fermi-LATFermi-LAT is today the most promising experiment to search for many hints of possible dark matter signals from space. We congratulate Miguel A. Sánchez-Conde, our MultiDark colleague at KIPAC/SLAC Stanford University, on his appointment of new convener of the Dark Matter & New Physics Working Group of Fermi-LAT.17/03/2014

New Center in Korea for studying the UniverseThe Institute for Basic Science (IBS) of Korea has appointed the MultiDark member, Kiwoon Choi, as director of the new Center for Theoretical Physics of the Universe (CTPU). CTPU is located at the city of Daejeon and has an annual budget of about 1M Euro.

In January, María Martínez, UZ MultiDark member, has participated in the maintenance and data taken of CUORE-0 in the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory (LNGS, Italy).This prototype, the proof-of-concept of CUORE experiment, will very soon surpass the sensitivity to neutrinoless double beta decay of the predecessor, CUORICINO. An optimization of the low energy threshold is ongoing that will also improve the dark matter sensitivity.

MultiDark members have participated in a one-day scientific meeting organized at the UPV campus at Gandia to glimpse the Dark Matter. Also, Professor J. Collar from U. of Chicago gave an outreach talk about Dark Matter searches. See the photos of the meeting here here

19/12/2013

Dear MultiDarkian friends,

With the hope that the fifth MultiDarkian year will be even better than the previous four, we wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! The PGB & the Office Management

Dark matter talks organized in Valencia by MultiDark groups: UPV, IFIC-Exp and IFIC-AHEP. They will be broadcasted in streaming on 10 - 11 December (talk in Spanish and Colloquium in English). You can send your questions/comments via Twitter to @campusgandiaupv, using the hashtag #materiaoscuraUPV

Chia-Hsun Chuang (MultiDark Postdoc) has received an award of 200.000 core-hours on the CURIE supercomputer (GENCI@CEA, France) from PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe). This CPU time will be used for BOSS clustering studies

08/10/2013

SuperCDMS presented new data

SuperCDMS, where the MultiDark UAM/IFT group is involved, has presented in TAUP 2013 the results of a special search for low-mass WIMPs at Soudan. The data allow to constrain WIMP-nucleon spin-independent parameter space for WIMP masses below 6 GeV.

MultiDark Summer Student visited the MAGIC telescopes at the Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos in the island of La Palma.José Manuel Penín (in the picture) joined the team that operates the gamma-ray telescopes and participated in the data taking during several nights. This visit was complemented with a training period at Institut de Física d'Altes Energies (IFAE) in Barcelona, where he worked in the optimization of the MAGIC online analysis.

13/09/2013

Book published by a MultiDark member

Gianfranco Bertone, member of MultiDark, published the book "Behind the Scenes of the Universe: From the Higgs to Dark Matter", where he provides a fascinating and accesible introduction to the Dark Matter problem.

Three recent articles signed by MultiDark members are on the Top 5 highly downloaded articles in Astroparticle Physics in ScienceDirect. This list includes the Astroparticle Physics papers that were read the most in the first half of 2013.

A MultiDark team with pathfinders from Valencia, Madrid, Buenos Aires and Cape Town, is participating in the “Dark Matter and New Physics” program at Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITPC)-Beijing, China, August 19-September 13.

Yu Liang (second from left) and Cheng Zhao (second from right) enjoyed their summer stay at IFT and DFT at the UAM campus. They have been working on Halo Occupation Distribution modeling and adapting an Initial Condition code to run simulations with a large number of particles.

27/08/2013

Everlasting Light

A nice story on the Extragalactic Background Light appears in the September 7 issue of the Science News magazine

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) has just released the largest comprehensive sample of high-resolution infrared spectra of 57,000 stars in our Milky Way, and includes an additional year of BOSS data. MultiDark is a member of theSDSS-III Collaboration

An international team led by MultiDark members has developed a new way to measure accurately the EBL. The technique involves measuring the attenuation of very high-energy gamma rays from distant blazars, which are supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies.

Scientists this week heard their first pops in COUPP-60 that searches for signs of dark matter in the form of tiny bubbles at SNOLAB underground lab. The COUPP experiment is led by J. Collar, member of MultiDark, and includes scientists from UPV group of MultiDark, M. Ardid and M. Bou. Fermilab managed the assembly and installation of the experiment´s detector.

Members of MultiDark have organized in collaboration with the EPFL a stand of the BigBOSS dark energy experiment at the sixth edition of the Robotics Festival in Lausanne. More than 10,000 people attended this event, see photo album here

26/04/2013

Dark Matter Search Results from CDMS-II Silicon Detectors

The Cryogenic Dark Matter Experiment, in which the MultiDark UAM/IFT group plays a role, announced at the American Physical Society meeting this weekend that it has seen possible hints of dark-matter particles in its latest result. Although the result is not statistically significant to claim the discovery or even evidence of dark matter, it is interesting enough to warrant further investigation.

You can read a statement from the collaboration on the CDMS website here

Members of MultiDark have been testing the prototype of the BigBOSS fiber robot positioner at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It has been developed by the company AVS in collaboration with IAA-CSIC and the Escuela Politécnica Superior & IFT (CEI-UAM+CSIC). The good results on Repeatability, X-Y Accuracy, Focus & Tip/Tilt, and FRD tests were presented at the BigBOSS Collaboration Meeting in Shanghai on March 27-29

05/04/2013

SDSS: 5000 papers, 200000 references

Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has just passed another milestone. There are now more than 5000 refereed papers that mention SDSS in the title or abstract; these papers have been cited over 200,000 times. There are now 409 papers with 100 or more citations, and over 600 published papers in 2012 alone. More details here. MultiDark is a member of the current SDSS-III Collaboration

Sergio Pastor, member of MultiDark, and collaborators Julien Lesgourgues, Gianpiero Mangano and Gennaro Miele, published the book "Neutrino Cosmology", where they bring together all aspects of the role of neutrinos in cosmology.

MultiDark members involved in the instrument development of the BigBOSS Dark Energy Experiment visited the company PRECIstep as part of a scientific and technological collaboration workshop with colleagues at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. PRECIstep develops and manufactures miniature steeper motors.

BigMultiDark Simulations: Status and Future Actions.The meeting is fully dedicated to discuss the status and performance of our current set of BigMD large-volumen high-resolution simulations for galaxy surveys and most important, to agreeing on the strategy and planning for future runs and work.

A $2.1 million grant from the Moore Foundation to the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics (BCCP), will fund the development of revolutionary technologies for BigBOSS, a project designed to study dark energy with unprecedented precision. MultiDark members are involved in BigBOSS.

An international team of astronomers, including MultiDark members, have discovered an unexpected explanation for why they can only find a small fraction of the satellite galaxies the Milky Way is supposed to have.

The MultiDark Databasepublishes data sets ofDark Matter cosmological simulations. Two new data sets were included recently: the density field and the cosmic web for the Bolshoi simulation. This allows to study the large scale structure (voids, filaments, sheets and knots) and their effects on the dark matter halos.

Horizon plunges down the biggest rabbit-hole in history in search of the smallest thing in the Universe. BBC primetime scientific programme about Quantum Gravity that will prominently feature the MAGIC telescopes.

Using the MultiDark Database, Zandanel, Pfrommer and Prada construct a multi-frequency galaxy cluster mock catalog reproducing the basic X-ray and SZ observed properties. They construct the cluster radio halo luminosity function and make prediction for the LOFAR cluster survey.

Sembolini, Yepes, Gottlober et al., have introduced recently the Marenostrum-MultiDark SImulations of galaxy Clusters (MUSIC) dataset. It constitutes one of the largest sample of hydrodynamically simulated galaxy clusters with more than 500 clusters and 2000 groups.

Excellence Project for a MultiDark member. The proposal "The Small Scale Structure of the Universe" by Stefan Gottlöber from AIP was now highlighted as Excellence Project 2012 by the John von Neumann Inst. for Computing. The proposal is part of the CLUES project.

MultiDark project signed in April 2012 an agreement with the Gravitation Astroparticle Physics Amsterdam Institute (GRAPPA) in Netherlands, expressing their desire to cooperate in their respective efforts to advance Astroparticle Physics in general and the research into Dark Matter in particular.

A proposal of cooperation between the Munich group and UZ group has been accepted by HAP and MultiDark. It consists of measurement of CaCO3 and WO3 samples for CRESST and EURECA experiments at Canfranc Lab.

Letter of Intent between MultiDark and HAPMultiDark project signed in January 2012 an agreement with the Helmholtz Alliance for Astroparticle Physics (HAP) in Germany, expressing their desire to cooperate in their respective efforts to advance Astroparticle Physics in general and the research into Dark Matter in particular.

Anisotropies measured by the Fermi-LATG. Gómez-Vargas and A. Morselli from MultiDark are two of the authors of the first Fermi paper on anisotropies in the diffuse gamma-ray background. The possibility that this effect includes an appreciable contribution from dark matter annihilation or decay cannot be excluded.

MultiDark project signed in August 2011 a Memorandum of Understanding that enables its participation in COUPP as Member. M. Ardid of the MultiDark UPV group will be the Lead Scientist for the participation.

MultiDark project has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding that enables its participation in CDMS as Member. D.G. Cerdeño of the MultiDark UAM/IFT group will be the Lead Scientist for the participation.

The MultiDark group at the IAA-CSICis hosting a workshop focused on the instrument development of the BigBOSS Focal Plane System. This includes the design of the focal plate and fiber robot positioner. Picture shows the first focal plate machining tests done at the AVS company

Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 InstalledAnalizing the information provided by AMS, hundreds of scientists from 16 countries are hoping to determine what composes the universe and how it began, as the AMS searches for clues on the origin of dark matter and the existence of antimatter and other unusual matter.

BOSS Early Science PaperF. Prada from MultiDark-IAA is one of the authors of the first SDSS-III BOSS science paper. The paper uses the BOSS data to look at how the galaxies they are selecting populate the underlying “dark matter halos”more information

MultiDark POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH POSITIONS New call addressed to applicants interested in doing their research in the field of dark matter. The hired members are expected to work with the members of the groups involved in the project. The application period will be closed by December 7th

MultiDark project has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding that enables its participation in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III as an Associate Member. F. Prada of the MultiDark-IAA group will be the Lead Scientist for the participation.more information

Collaboration of MultiDark with the AIP

As a result of the agreement recently signed with the Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, a new astrophysical database will be developed. It will contain the MultiDark suite of large volume simulations and the Bolshoi simulation of Prof. Anatoly Klypin.more information

MultiDark PREDOCTORAL RESEARCH POSITIONS New call addressed to students interested in doing their research in the field of dark matter. The hired members are expected to work with the members of the groups involved in the project. The application period will be closed by September 30thmore information

The nature of Dark Matter

The PhD Thesis of the researcher M. A. Sánchez Conde, member of MultiDark Consolider-Ingenio project, among the best Spanish Thesis in Astrophysics in 2008-2009, according to the SEA (Spanish Society of Astronomy). Download document: more information

Summer short term visits for students in MultiDark infrastructures

MultiDark offers to undergraduate students in their last years the opportunity to participate in a summer visit in one of its research groups in the field of dark matter. NEWS: See the list of the selected candidatesmore information

DM gamma-ray emission from the Local UniverseAll-sky maps of the gamma-ray flux from annihilation and decay of dark matter. The distribution of dark matter in the Local Universe is obtained from constrained simulation Box160 of CLUES project. Descargar poster:more information